Saturday, June 9, 2007

"Should I trust Google?"

Good article at the Financial Times about "Google's Goals..." [By way of John Battelle's Search Blog]. A quote in the piece from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO is either hyperbolic, or scares the crap out of me:

We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation. The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’

"What shall I do tomorrow?" "What job shall I take?"

Other questions that come to mind...

"Should I trust Google to make life-decisions for me?"

"Where have all the flowers gone?"

"How can we get out of Iraq most logically?"

"What number am I thinking of?"

When I get together with more than two-or-so friends, and we play the, "'What do you want to do tomorrow?" game... we spend at least half-an-hour shrugging, saying, "I don't know... whaddayouwanna do?" Debating Mexican vs. Greek food. Talking about what we did last time. Answering phone calls from people who "might join up... depends on what you're doing." Etc. Etc. Etc.

I guess, if Google could aggregate all of our personal search information at the same time -- maybe through an online group profile, I'd be interested in answering the question, "What should we do tonight?" as it would save scads of time.

I expect the answer would involve clicking on several ads for restaurants, movies/shows, music choices, etc. If Google ever spoutted back, "You should just hang out and talk and eat some of the great new cheese that Bill has in the fridge," my head would explode.